What i found

Photo by Leo_Visions on Unsplash

it's only when you lose yourself
they say
that you find yourself

i have been lost
still am
on this road

i did find things along the way
still am

like that Old Norse word —
thing
a word that used to mean a gathering
but changed to mean an object

a simplistically perfect
thing — that word
that trailed behind
in the language
like other words
but like no other word
that became a meaning
unto itself — nebulous and exact

and like everyone else
i gathered things
and found myself
in less gatherings

found myself
wondering as i wandered
on that road
to understand the meaning
of it all and myself in it

toddled in my first steps
of understanding
to hobbled in my last steps
with the heft of the thing

— of that i am uncertain
and certain

will continue
until i no longer continue

and that is the only real
thing that i found.

— M. R. McNeely